Just got back from Spring Break in Florida with my son, and who knew? Other people like to go there for Spring Break too. Lordy, nine hours between Atlanta and Tampa is just not fun times, trust me. But it was worth it! We got to see all my family and all my husband’s family in the area; quite a feat, I tell ya. And being away does make you appreciate home even more. A special thanks to my Mom and Richard for playing such fantastic hosts — love you guys! Side note: Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D is totally worth it. I didn’t realize a full-length 3D movie would look that good.

Something dawned on me today. I have a lot of women in my life that are amazing. Some are family, some are friends, and some are even strangers that have enriched my life. In no particular order, I am very appreciative of the following women:

My mom, for being a raging Democrat who is always in the know about current affairs. She definitely keeps me on my toes.

My sister, for her envy-producing self-growth. She is constantly pushing herself to new goals.

My aunt, for her strength and perseverance. She is willing to move mountain and oceans to help her family; lord help the mountains and oceans.

My friend Sharon Linne Faulk, for her understanding and support. She tolerates my crappy attentiveness, and always welcomes me back when I’m ready.

My brother’s friend, Tracy Winter, for her talent and work ethic. She is a fabulous artist and graphic designer, and is probably one of the hardest workers I know.

My guild co-leader, Jen, for her patience and kind nature. She has tackled a difficult job with grace and humor.

My favorite blogger, Janet Phillips, for creating an amazing website and resource for digital scrapping. She saw a need and has exceeded all my expectations.

My favorite media personality, Rachel Maddow, for her intelligence and insight. She makes the hardest subject seem interesting, and actually makes news enjoyable.

I’m sure there are more, but those came immediately to mind. Phew! I’m lucky to have all these ladies adding to my life.

Okay, time to check up on my character progress from last week. I’m quite pleased if I do say so myself:

• I reached Ebon Blade revered and got the new helmet enchant.
• I went through Friendly and am now honored with Sons of Hodir. That opened up 2 more dailies, yippee!
• Instead of crafting an Icestriker Cloak (a 15 DPS gain), I used my tokens to buy a Hammerhead Sharkskin Cloak (48 DPS) and got it enchanted with +22 agility.
• I regemmed my gloves with a Deadly Monarch Topaz; it did have some low-level gem in there.
• Got lucky on drops this week: Webbed Death for melee stat-stick, and best of all, a Strong-Handed Ring!
• My rogue can now fish in Northrend and has been busy fishing up Dragonfin for my buff food. I also leveled Phly’s cooking so now both of them are doing the daily cooking quests.
• What the heck was I thinking? My pet doesn’t need Mammoth Treats but instead Kibblers Bits! I farmed a bunch of Buzzard Meat to keep my kitty buffed.

All in all, I think that was decent progress for the week. Here is my new gear wish list:

gearwishlist_feb11.xls

Our GL posted on our forums about raiders needing to be better prepared. I have to admit; I haven’t been as diligent as I should have been. The content hasn’t been overly challenging (well, until we tried Sartharion +1 drake, lol) and my performance has been passable. But when has passable ever been the standard for me? I got too involved with trying to level alts and haven’t spent the time to maximize my raider. So this is an accountability post. I’ll come back in a week and see what improvements I have made.

Helmet – I need to reach Ebon Blade revered for the enchant; I am currently more than halfway through honored. I’m currently using the one from BC. This will require championing (tabard equipped) and doing dungeon dailies.

Shoulders – I need to reach exalted with Sons of Hodir, and I am only barely at friendly! This will require doing the dailies (only 3 at first) and farming Relics of Uldar. Neither my helmet nor shoulder are BIS, but I need to be prepared.

Chest – This should be okay for now. Once I get one of the 3 best chestpieces, I’ll need to spring for Powerful Stats to squeeze out that extra +2 to all stats.

Back – Okay, but need to look at making the Icestriker Cloak. This was not previously a DPS gain for me, but Shandara’s spreadsheet is now showing this as a 15 DPS gain for me.

Wrist – Okay, but saving tokens in case I don’t get the Slime Stream Bands.

Waist – This looks good for now. The spreadsheet shows Torn Web Wrapping as a -9 DPS loss for me, but they are included as part of the Theoretical Best DPS set for SV hunters. So if the drop comes, I’ll roll.

Legs – I think this is BIS. I regemmed today, replacing a +14 agi with +16 agi, and replacing 16 AP/12 Stam with 8 agi/3 MP5.

Feet – Holy cow! I’ve been running around without enchanting these guys after I bought them off the token vendor. What a dork. I’ll slap Icewalker on these for now, with an eye to Superior Agility if I can get over hitcap without the help from Icewalker.

Ranged & Melee – Look good for now, and will just hope for some drops.

I have created a Gear Wish List based off my current gear imported into Shandara’s spreadsheet. I change this everytime I get new gear, but it is very helpful when raiding so I don’t have to evaluate each drop and worry that I’ll miss something.

gearwishlist.xls

The other thing I need to do is make sure my buff foods are the best I can bring. To that end, I am leveling my rogue’s fishing to 380 so she can cook up some Blackened Dragonfin. I also need to farm mammoths so my pet can get some Spiced Mammoth Treats. I have Elixir of Mighty Agility & Mighty Thoughts, but on nights with LOTS of wipes probable, I will continue to use Flasks of Endless Rage. Whew, lots to do!

Warning to readers: this is another WoW-related post. If you aren’t into this form of crack, please move along — nothing to see here.

Last night we cleared the plague wing and went to take a poke at Sapphiron. After one learning experience (a.k.a. a wipe), we were on our way to looting one dead frost wyrm. On to Kel’Thuzad! The first try was awesome, but the next 2 were a little sloppy. I started to wonder if it just wasn’t going to happen. But the next attempt went much smoother, and I’m proud to say Naxx-25 is clear. /happy dance I was even happier when I saw the WWS report:

Guess training Explosive Shot, respeccing to include Aimed, and being more careful on my LnL procs is starting to pay off. I’m getting excited about this spec now. I hope with another couple of weeks under my belt, it will feel as natural as BeastMaster did.

Okay, I sucked it up yesterday and decided I couldn’t go into Naxx with my gimped BM spec. I hightailed it to the hunter trainer and forked over the gold for a fresh go at Survival. I played SV at the end of BC, but primarily to give the melee raid the EW buff. This time it was all about personal DPS. /evil grin  In that vein, I picked a spec off EJ that was designed to max DPS. Great, except for two very imporant things. That spec left off Aimed Shot in lieu of using multishot to weave in with Steady. Except sometimes multi just can’t be used in raid, like on Instructor Razuvious and Grand Widow Faerlina. Lovely, so I was stuck with steadies and autos waiting for Explosive Shot cooldowns. And speaking of Explosive, that’s where I made my second and biggest mistake. I took it as a talent but I FORGOT TO TRAIN UP THE LEVELS! /facepalm

Well, I went back to the trainer to respec…AGAIN. I used a spec that was similar to our uber-hunter Thunderfro’s spec, but a mixed a little BRK/Lienna at the bottom of the SV tree. We’re going to plague quarter tonight, and hopefully a visit to Sapphiron. If we can find our ice shield’s consistently, we might even pay a little visit to Kel’Thuzad himself. Now it’s getting exciting.

Well, I haven’t done the PvP like I was supposed to, but otherwise I am quite pleased with my progress. My hunter is finally on the Great Mother quests in Nagrand (thanks, Tim!), and is up to the instance portion. She also did another Kara run on Saturday. After totally embarassing myself with a pet-pathing problem, I hope I finished up okay. Not brilliant, but okay for my third run (and 1st was only a half-clear). My rogue is up to level 68 and I can almost taste that elusive 70. I will probably be working on her this week since I know I can’t make this weekend’s Kara run. I also found a new plaything: Warcrafter. It let’s you play with your character & faux-equip items, then it calculates all your stats so you can compare different combos. This helps me because sometimes I can’t tell how the stats will affect my damage or hit rating. And I hate using a BOE just to see the actual DPS change. Now I know what my damage would be if I ever got that uber-gear from BT.

Whenever I talk to Tim or Robert, I feel like I am so far behind in WoW. “Do you have your epic mount yet?” “What is your enchanting up to?” “Do much PvP lately?”. ARGH! They must think I’m a slug. I think that’s why I enjoy talking about it with Stacey and Brett. MUCH more laid back! With that said, I think I do need some goals:

Phlygurl

• Do Ogri’la dailies at least 5 times a week
• Do Skettis dailies at least 3 times a week
• Do at least 3 BG a week
• Try to join in at least on heroic daily per week
• Check out leatherworking patterns from rep quartermasters (eg. Mag’har)
• Try to join at least one Kara run per month

Resetta:

• Develop plan for leveling enchanting and getting new formulas
• Finish up all Nesingwary Exp. quests by December 9.
• Decide on tailoring specialty and accept appropriate quest.

Let’s see how well I can keep up with those goals.

Today at karate I noticed that Devin was just chatting up a storm with the instructor, Ms. Camarato. I could see she had a quizzical look at some of the things he was saying, but I just chalked it up to not fully understanding Devin’s speech. After class, she came over to me and asked “Has someone been trying to steal Devin’s pants at school?” Um, not that I know of; why do you ask? “Well, Devin was saying something about a no one stealing pants.” Oh *lightbulb*, “maybe he was talking about a gnome stealing pants,” I offered. I could see that didn’t exactly ring the same bells for her. And if you are also in the dark, maybe this will explain:

Dude, Where’s My Mount?

Some people ask me if I have too much time on my hands because I scrapbook, and play WoW, and watch football, and whatever else someone perceives is a blackhole of time. But I have the same 24-hours a day as everyone else. Now if I REALLY had too much time on my hands, I might make something like this:

I’m So Sick video

Thanks to the assistance of some wonderfully generous guildmates, last night I was able to finish the quests to unlock the Ogri’la daily quests. If I do these regularly, I will be well on my way to my epic flying mount. Whoo-hoo! So a special thanks to Fej, Miz, and Dhubh for helping Dravik & I complete the quests.

I also have to give credit to my husband who took over with Devin and gave him a bath. Devin did NOT want to go to bed without me, and I spent half of one battle with an unhappy 4 y/o hanging off my chair. But Sherman is a trooper and managed to get him up to bed. Since my guildmates are so strong, we whipped through the quests pretty fast and I was able to get up for the nightly book reading. Whew!